Wind Farms: Turbines break like match-sticks in medium waves, and their capacity is “overestimated”

Not a good news week for wind power.

First windpower probably doesn’t produce as much electricity as people though it could. If the new estimates are right, humanity would need to cover 3 million square kilometers of the Earth to get just 10% of our electricity from wind. (And how many storms will that prevent do you think?) Could the “cure” be worse than the condition?

Second, it appears that wind turbines in the ocean might snap like matchsticks in particular conditions — conditions that are different for each turbine and at the moment, impossible to predict. The authors explain that it doesn’t have to be big waves or big storms — medium sized waves were the worst.

Windpower’s theoretical maximum isn’t what we thought it might have been

When we account for the wind shadows that large installations produce, at best, wind power may only give us 1 Watt per square meter (or 1 MW per square kilometer). According to this team our global energy needs are in the order of 30 terawatts, and one terawatt is one trillion (1012) watts. If that is the case, to to supply 10% of our global energy needs we’d have to cover… 3 trillion square meters or 3 million square kilometers.

…the latest research in mesoscale atmospheric modeling, published February 25 in the journal Environmental Research Letters, suggests that the generating capacity of large-scale wind farms has been overestimated.

Each wind turbine creates behind it a “wind shadow” in which the air has been slowed down by drag on the turbine’s blades. The ideal wind farm strikes a balance, packing as many turbines onto the land as possible, while also spacing them enough to reduce the impact of these wind shadows. But as wind farms grow larger, they start to interact, and the regional-scale wind patterns matter more.

Keith’s research has shown that the generating capacity of very large wind power installations (larger than 100 square kilometers) may peak at between 0.5 and 1 watts per square meter. Previous estimates, which ignored the turbines’ slowing effect on the wind, had put that figure at between 2 and 7 watts per square meter.

In short, we may not have access to as much wind power as scientists thought.

“If wind power’s going to make a contribution to global energy requirements that’s serious, 10 or 20 percent or more, then it really has to contribute on the scale of terawatts in the next half-century or less,” says Keith.

If we were to cover the entire Earth with wind farms, he notes, “the system could potentially generate enormous amounts of power, well in excess of 100 terawatts, but at that point my guess, based on our climate modeling, is that the effect of that on global winds, and therefore on climate, would be severe — perhaps bigger than the impact of doubling CO2.”

… Keith says, “It’s worth asking about the scalability of each potential energy source — whether it can supply, say, 3 terawatts, which would be 10 percent of our global energy need, or whether it’s more like 0.3 terawatts and 1 percent.” [Science Daily]

To go “100% renewable” with wind, we could convert, say, four countries to windfarms (pick four of these: US, Australia, China, Brazil or Canada).

Offshore wind towers have their own major problems

You would think the ocean is the obvious way to fill millions of spare square kilometers, but it is harder than it looks. This week one study suggests that offshore wind turbines may unpredictably break “like matches” when the right sized waves hit with the right pattern. It’s like the damage from resonance on a suspension bridge, and known as “ringing”. It is a problem that is hard to predict. It depends on how deep the water is, the solidity of the bottom, the slope, size of the tower, and the spacing of the waves. But no one is able yet to model that.

“The problem is, we still do not know exactly when the wind turbines may break,” says Professor John Grue from the Department of Mathematics at the University of Oslo, Norway. Grue is one of the world’s foremost experts on wave research. In 1989 he discovered an inexplicable wave phenomenon called ringing, which is a special type of vibration that occurs when choppy waves hit marine installations. The discovery was made in a 25-metre long wave laboratory located in the basement of the mathematics building at Blindern Campus.

So far scientists have studied ringing in small and large waves, but as it turns out, ringing is more common in medium-size waves. For wind turbines at sea with a cylinder diameter of eight metres, the worst waves are those that are more than 13 metres high and have an 11-second interval between them.

The good news is that this work is mostly based on models

The bad news is that the models don’t work yet. Nonetheless, researchers are still convinced there is a real problem. They allege the devastating cracks in one oil platform were caused by ringing.

Oil rig damaged

Ringing does not just harm wind turbines. Ringing has already been a great problem for the oil industry. The designers of the YME platform did not take ringing into account, and lost NOK 12 billion.

“It is possible to build your way out of the ringing problem by strengthening the oil rigs. However, it is not financially profitable to do the same with wind turbines,” says John Grue.

Financially — the word you are looking for is “ruin”.

If medium sized waves in average storms can knock over a tower, it makes offshore turbines just that much more expensive…

“If we do not take ringing into consideration, offshore wind turbine parks can lead to financial ruin,” warns John Grue to the research magazine Apollon at University of Oslo.

224 comments to Wind Farms: Turbines break like match-sticks in medium waves, and their capacity is “overestimated”

A couple of points. Firstly, the ringing effect was a known phenomenon before offshore wind farms were built. How come it was not taken into account by offshore designers?
Additionally, the concept of wind shadow is also well known. Why have the alternative power industrial complex kept so quiet about it?
Secondly the unholy alliance between governments and offshore wind farm builders means that inevitably any extra cost will be immediately transferred to the taxpayer regardless, as is already happening.

Truly professional engineers have been involved; but left in the dark about dynamic load parameters which are impossible to guesstimate well enough for structural design purposes. Manufacturers compete to supply steel structures. The “makers” of the windmills seldom do their own structural steel manufacture.

25+ years ago, when I was designing steel pole structures for a manufacturer, I always included the primmary resonant frequency of the structure with the specified top-load. (That was for lighting, power transmission, solar collector, etc. etc. as well as wind loads.) It was hard enough getting the nominal rotation speed of the “wheel” out of the “turbine manufacturers” to ensure that the blade passing frequency did not coincide with any harmonic of the structure’s natural frequency.

If the dynamic and quasi-static loads on a struture are known well enough, then the structure can be ENGINEERED to withstand the loading. That includes wave loads and wind loads.

The “ringing” at the “back” of the structure is the action of eddies in the water (and to a lesser extent; air) that add transverse loads on the structure which, combined with the longitudinal wave load amplification if a low pressure coincides with the impact of a wave; as well as bi-axial bending loads from wind and turbine torque reaction, probably overload the structure; not as a resonance effect per sé. Prevalence of such failures make me wonder if the structural designers of today are at all familiar with Mohr’s Circle.

The competence of the whole industry and its supporters is questionable when one seen statements like

“Thus far it has not been possible to measure the force exerted by ringing.”

BTW: The easiest way to change the structure’s resonant frequency is to move all or part of the mass from the top of the pole to the base of the pole. The generator and main gearbox can be mounted (vertically) in the base, with an intermediate-speed, flexibly-coupled shaft between the top nacelle and the heavy machinery in the base. The industry isn’t interested in such change (which has signficant costs); probably because they get their subsidies even when the stuff they make doesn’t work. Having stuff that works may also lead to profitability which could spell an end to subsidies.

The complexity and mass of what is inside the nacelle also makes for it being practically unmaintainable in off-shore applications. Any maintenance requiring the lifting or lowering of heavy equipment can only be done using special vessels – with very large cranes. Conditions have to be favourable with calm seas and winds. So e.g. any breakages in the North Sea’s windfarms mean that a damaged unit can be out of service for more than 10 months. There’s a very narrow “build window” in which the absurdities can be erected; typically less than 4 months of the year.

The height also causes problems on land. If they catch fire, firefighters can only stand clear (at a safe distance of at least the tip-height of the highest blade) and try to limit the collateral damage to surrounding property. As a result, the windmills are almost always a write-off. With high demolition and replacement costs.

Again, I’m linking into one of my own Posts, this one from three and a half years back now.

This one shows an image of a typical wind tower nacelle, the big thing on top of the tower. Click on the image and it opens in a new and larger window for better clarity, and then navigate back to the text. This explains the complexity of what is in that nacelle, what is actually quite a large weight on top of each tower, and just how little power they actually do generate on what can only be referred to as a sporadic basis.

Now perhaps you cam gain an inkling of why these things are indeed so damned expensive.

UNFORTUNATE WAVE POWER: When waves above 13 metres hit wind turbines, an unfortunate force arises at the rear of the turbine. This is called ringing. John Grue is now looking for a general mathematical formula that can explain the special phenomenon.

Bernd,
It’s easy to agree with you. At the very base, I place accountability. If nobody is nominated as the place where the buck stops, you will more frequently get poor engineering, shallow engineering.
One company I worked for built the Ranger Uranium mine and processing plant. You can imagine how the critical eyes of the world’s engineers, especially those who were anti-uranium, watched for the slightest sign of design or material failure. It did not cost so much more for a Rolls-Royce plant. Thirty years of ops with no significant accident is on the record.
In 1975 I managed a large pilot plant for a year. It used 10 tonnes of chlorine gas a day when at full steam, the gas being at 1,050 deg C and 7 psi. Steel burns in chlorine like a pyrotechnic under those conditions, if oxygen gets into the system. Safety was paramount as there were several thousand people living within earshot.
What can one say? Professionally correct design and operation is possible, adoption of premature designs is most unwise and is probably known before the event by somebody. It often comes out during an accident investigation that someone knew the likely cause.
These are some more reasons why I keep ratting on about poor standards in the science and technology of climate change work dragging down the professionalism of proper people.

It often comes out during an accident investigation that someone knew the likely cause.

Accident’s dont’ happen. Errors cause them.

One of these days one of these giant farces will collaspe and kill some more people (as it is my understanding that there have already been deaths from a tower collapsing – please correct me if I am misinformed), and the media friendly excuse of ‘freak accident’ will no doubt be wheeled out.

Not really comparable.
1. You got perks if you worked in the quarry where they were cut (eg tuna caught by someone else).
2. It only takes 35 people to shift one
3. Having them visible was good PR (eg don’t mess with us)

This is a study based on models, right? Models which don’t work in any other area of climate science, but they work here?

And, according to this model, wind farms bigger than the biggest that exist at the moment anywhere on the planet only produce 1w/m2.
Which is weird, because commercial turbines are rated at 200 – 2,000 w/m2.

And off-shore turbines could get shaken up up a ‘moderate’ 13m wave? That’s not big? Really? That’s 11 on the Beaufort scale (Beaufort was really heavy metal, his scale went to 12.)

A wave that big would snap most yachts. I wouldn’t want to be on Clive Palmer’s Titanic in 13m seas. Extreme surfers fly the world looking for waves that big, generally way out in the middle of nowhere with an isolated reef or something that can create a wave. Are there any wind farms anywhere near traditional big wave locations? Have any wind turbines ever ‘snapped’ in the way described? Jo’s article doesn’t mention any.

On the other hand: have any nuclear reactors ever broken down? Have any coal mines ever killed workers? Have any dams ever failed? Have any gas or oil pipes ever exploded?

Wind is probably the safest form of electricity generation and this article is fanciful.

I’ve seen big tall trees on the west slopes of the Cascade Mtns of Washington State with 15 – 20 meters snapped out of the top from something similar to the “ringing” mentioned. Being quite flexible, in strong winds the tree gets blown one way and when the wind suddenly stops the trunk breaks during the snap-back. Many fall in a chaotic pattern (pick-up sticks) but I know of one that came down top-first and buried itself vertically into the middle of a hiking trail. At ground level it was a little less than ½ m across and got wider as it went up. The trail crew cut it off and left the rest buried in the trail.

A wind turbine has a mass (weight) centered at the top and has to be deployed where winds are expected. A large fetch and sustained winds seems to be an major unavoidable design flaw of the industry.

Thanks Streetcred –I thought it maybe as simple as that. So why didn’t the windmill engineers learn from that experience ? Also I believe the Danish offshore windmills are now experiencing serious issues with the condition of the concrete they have used –its breaking up.

The Ancient Romans discovered (or acquired) a recipe for concrete that could, and still does, withstand the ravages of seawater. Many of the wharfs in Mediterranean ports use the old Roman docks as foundations (the Mediterranean sea level has risen over the last 2 millennia). The newer modern concrete is deteriorating but the older foundations persist.

Modern science cannot figure out what the Roman recipe was. A lot of money is awaiting anybody who can crack it.

The concrete for marine use would seem to have consisted of slaked lime paste, pozzolanic sand and fine stones. The use of pozzolanic sand of volcanic origin and the technique of minimal water seems to have been all it took.
Egg albumen might have been added, although no references seem available. If used, it would have acted like some modern additives i.e. forming a film on the surface helping water retention. Results in denser concrete with less micro-cracks to weaken it.

Portland cement is so called because it used a similar composition, and resisted sea water. The pozzolanic sand introduced small amounts of iron and aluminium which may have helped durability. (High amounts of aluminium are deleterious).

Pozzolanic comes from the town of Pozzuoli near Naples where they mined the sand. Its other claim to fame is a the birthplace of Sophia Loren, note how long she kept her looks.

It doesn’t matter what the cost or how efficient when you are backed and even encouraged by politicians who have an agenda. So when our world cools even more for how many low income people will unaffordable electricity result in death?

How much discussion of these findings will occur in the MSM? At a guess-none. CO2, CAGW, wind farms, solar panels dirty coal etc., etc. are all so intertwined with the desire of politicians to keep power by raising money to bribe voters that proper discussion has long been abandoned.

God I love coal. All my life, I flick a switch, turn a knob, everything happens. No smoke, no flame, no noise, no rationing, no brown outs. I hardly ever get to see or smell a power station, which is a pity in some ways, but coal power is centralised, it is potent, it is abundant. I don’t need to see anything more than some wires.

God I love coal, especially Australian coal. Chocolate sunshine. I’ve had to live for long periods with Spain’s countless wind turbines. They disgust me.

God I love coal. We need to goldplate our coal industry, top to bottom. It deserves it. It’s so wonderful.

But the Victorian milk choc is super-recoverable, and it’s quite tasty too.

Coal. Love it. LOVE it.

I remember once hiking past some EU funded solar park in Europe. It was so busted up and grimy and abandoned-looking. Hey, those panels get left out in the sun all day! You wouldn’t do that to a Manly supporter. All I could think of was how much I totally love Australian coal.

Now, the real question. There is another song that we used to hear occasionally in the 1960s. It was like the Newcastle Song but it was somewhat for non-mixed company. Tells about a girl in size 12 steel capped boots and her activities behind the number something blast furnace. It’s quite immoral really, but having heard it and laughed your heart out, you want to hear it again. Anyone know it? You might need to be a retired coalie to know it.

Wind is natures way of cooling the earths surface through evapotranspiration as well as redistributing heat both laterally and vertically. If the greens are truly concerned about global warming why on earth are they mess with the wind?

Indeed , what planet hating evil slime, would seek to strangle the breathe of mother earth?
the eco-loones are killers, they seek to choke the very breathe of mother earth.
Probably should amp this to even more hysterical levels and post at Greenpeace.

Been trying to get my head around that.. The pressure difference that drive the wind must still exist, so I suspect that any climate effect is only likely to be local, and like any other warming of the atmosphere will immediately be catered for by the pressure temperature gradients.

No surprises with this information, an engineer at my work explained (or tried) to me a lot of the design flaws of large wind turbines and said you can only do so much with such an old idea until it’s design limit is reached. In Geelong a company called Austeng makes a smaller less intrusive turbine the “eco whisper” which is a 30 blade unit with an outer ring (impressive fabrication in the flesh) sizes range from 5 to 20kw and can withstand a cat2 cyclone, but that means it would take 100 of these to replace a 2MW turbine and the whispers are lower to the ground thus less wind. So you can see how an old idea can reach it’s limits and you have to move on to other ideas,the old “necessity is the mother of invention” has never been truer when it comes to wind power.

Do the blades of these offshore wind disasters sink or float? If they float, will we see an abundance of them washing up on distant shores in years to come? Can we build anything out of them? If I had a house on the beach, I’m sure I could find a use for them.

Roof slats? Trimmed down for picket fencing? Surfboards, maybe…? Hmmm, I wonder if I could turn a profit on that one…?

Seriously, you’re doing a good thing by dreaming up ways to recycle the crap. I’ve seen a dismantling figure of 15% of original cost, but that doesn’t take into account all the fixtures, bases and underground stuff, as well as law suits and contractual wrangling. Also, once governments lose interest – I know of one government that can lose interest quicker than a blink – and Vestas, GE, Siemens etc aren’t copping the “incentives”, there’s going to be the mother of all messes.

Spain has been utterly disfigured by these piles of junk, which have created a bizarre privileged class of landowners who are paid massively to accommodate the towers. Maybe TonyfromOz has ideas on the cost of ditching/recycling a planet-load of whirlygigs.

We could develop a slip-on mask of Malcolm Fraser to pull over them when they all break down. Then future generations will wonder about it, but only think we were silly to build so many big religious statues, instead of thinking we were crazy enough to want to use big windmills to power our society.

Might be cheaper to encase them in concrete, and put a warning on them.

“DO NOT LISTEN TO THE GREENS”

It will provide work for future archeologists to decipher the mystery of the Green Obelisks.

Some bright spark may determine that there was a short lived Luddite death worshiping cult called “The Greens” that was connected to the construction of the strange monoliths built in the early part of the 21st century.

…yerst, sounds like a make-me-believe, wondered if I had seen it in adreambrought onby hypoxia at high altitude, but I just looked, its true, its dismal, its something everyone should know about and see pictures of, 14000, FOURTEEN THOUSAND abandoned wind turbines inthe USA!http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/wind_energys_ghosts_1.html

I’ve seen them in California ,Ace.
That sailing ships were swiftly replaced by early primitive steamships tells you all you need to know about wind power.
Just like sailplanes are utterly useless for anything except having a little fun.

Actually my dream would be to have all the greenies clean up the mess – they started it!

I reckon you wouldn’t see a greenie for dust if such a task was brought in as fitting punishment for green propagandists. We should make sure it’s not just the little people, either, but the masterminds of all this, the planners and manipulators. The big guys.

I know, I know… it won’t happen, they’ll all tiptoe away quietly, but it’s a lovely thought, isn’t it? I wonder if we should take their wheelbarrows away from them and all other tools, you know, for not being “green”.

anyone yet heard the Coalition promise to build any coal-fired power stations?

Britain’s power output hits 15-yr low, CO2 likely up
LONDON, Feb 28 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Power production in Britain fell to the lowest level in 15 years in 2012, according to government data published on Thursday, but carbon emissions in the EU’s second biggest emitting nation likely rose as electricity produced from coal soared…http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2201781?&ref=searchlist

what is our CO2 price again?? funny how so many Reuters Point Carbon articles are from Beijing!

I have never heard ‘climate change’ alarmists raising the alarm about what would happen if we started directly removing 3 TeraWatts of power from the climate system (via wind turbines). That would probably have a truely measurable impact on the climate…

Two types of Environmentalist: Type A: evil (and I do mean that in the literal sense) duplicitous, manipulative far-seeing schemers and Type B) sheep. The sheep are largely too thick to understand that energy cannot be made but only converted and cannot ever be sustainable or free.

The Type A’s know this, their scheme is first to get everyone dependent on wind power, THEN to start arguing that because of what we and they both understand, gigantic scale wind power may also produce climate change and therefore, they would argue, must be cut back. The ultimate aim of all Type A Environmentalism is at least the total de-industrialisation of the planet and quite often the total elimination of humanity also.

The compromise where most probably sit is in wanting humans reduced to the jibbering, cowering, defenceless, cold and hungry spectacle depicted inthe opening scenes of 2001 A Space Odyssey, primitive primates before the discovery of tools. That is their ideal. That is what everything in Environmentalism ultimately reduces to.

Well I must say I am a windmill fan. I think they are a good way to pump water (not generate electricity) on a small scale.
As small scale water pumps they work.
Aye they have been pumping water since we tapped the artesian basin and they stay in operation until they rust away to nothing.
And Aye, I like things that work cost effectively, which is why I hate wind turbines for electricity with a passion.

As a source of energy to replace other forms of stable generation they are a far from being compatible with human existence. They may have some application in scenarios where reliability is not an issue.

It is hard to write a yes know poll question. Everyone has some level of qualification. The alternative is to make the question so specific that it either loses meaning or is too difficult to interpret.

Qualifications aside, and in retrospect, the result was obvious – even if I had written it badly or complicatedly.

I think a better poll would break it into four groups with accept and reject AGW as two more groups. This would still be confined to readers of this blog; I would not want a public survey as they don’t have the knowledge of the subject.

My feeling is that the AGW proponents would give more red thumbs than green.

A report by Kimberly Diamond called ‘Extreme Weather Impacts on Offshore
Wind Turbines: Lessons Learned’ describes some of the risks:

“Due to more intense weather conditions than originally
anticipated, hundreds of offshore wind turbines in
Europe are undergoing extensive repair.

“Extreme weather conditions have also caused about four fifths
of all North Sea offshore turbines to sustain failing
grouted connections.

“Hundreds of millions of dollars in repairs
are associated with rectifying this grouting issue.

“Sea floor dynamics, including wave conditions, tides, currents, water
flow velocity, marine growth, terrain, and ice formation, can
create chronic scour, or the depletion of seabed sediment.
Scour can cause erosion around offshore turbine bases located
in sandy soils, making such turbines’ foundation anchoring
less sturdy and reducing the turbines’ stability.

“Similar to scour, sand wave migration can cause cable exposure.
Sand wave migration rate can have adverse consequences for turbine cable installations. This is because if a cable was originally buried under a sand crest on
the ocean floor, it can become exposed if the crest migrates and
leaves a trough in its place.

“Cable exposure is an expensive and difficult problem to fix.
Few installation vessels available globally can lay subsea cables
or conduct cable repairs.”

“Anticipated global temperature increases and elevated sea
levels associated with climate change may impact offshore
wind turbines scheduled to be located in U.S. waters.

“Carnegie Mellon University researchers
found that turbines placed in U.S. waters may be vulnerable
to hurricane-force extreme winds because offshore turbines
currently on the market are only designed to withstand Category
1 hurricane wind speeds.

“Replacing a severely damaged turbine
also may not be cost effective……..Consider what may happen if numerous turbines
in an offshore wind farm simultaneously experience severe damage.”

28 Feb: Daily Mail: Nick McDermott: So much for global warming! Four out of the last five winters have been COLDER than average
Over the last five years, only last winter saw the mercury rise above the 3.3C (38F) average – taken from 30 years of statistics from 1981.
Met Office says figures are ‘part of normal weather patterns’
*Soaring gas prices* are not the sole reason for our increasing heating bills – four out of the five past winters have been colder than average, the Met Office has revealed…
The figures are likely to be seized on by sceptics of man-made climate change, who claim that global warming has flatlined despite a large rise in greenhouse emissions in recent decades.
But Met Office officials suggested the recent crop of cold winters is part of normal weather patterns, which have previously been recorded in the 60s and 80s.
And looking further back, both 2006/07 and 2008/09 were two very mild winters with UK mean temperatures of 5.6C(42f) and 4.9C (41f) respectively.
Forecaster Helen Chivers said a cyclical phenomenon known as the North Atlantic oscillation (NAO) could be contributing to the nippier seasons…
‘This is the classic example of the variability that we can see in the British weather…http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2286041/So-global-warming-4-5-winters-COLDER-average-reveals-Met-Office.html

Wouldn’t that be more of a Non-Problem, which is just as well because the Solutions are turning out to be pretty much Non-Solutions too. Non-Solutions that are proving fantastically expensive for what benefit too. ?

It should now be obvious that we will reach “peak-wind” and “peak-solar” long before we reach peak oil, peak coal and peak gas. Because of the very low energy density in wind and solar power, there will soon not be any physical space left on which to erect these things.

Only partly off-topic. I was tramping across France with a pack three years ago and happened to have dinner with a retired geo-thermal electrical engineer called Michel. I asked him about hot rocks and he said it was very old tech that worked well in parts of Europe for certain heating and cooling purposes. I asked him about its power-gen potential as proposed by our Timmy. Michel laughed.

Now tell us please, in your own words, the difference between nameplate (claimed installed) capacity and actual delivered power as this relates to wind and nuclear power. Your naive, breathless link actually uses the word “installed”, not delivered or “made” (your word)

I’m sure you’ll take your time. You haven’t understood a single syllable of these threads, have you ?

Excellent. So, obviously the difference between nameplate capacity and delivered power is the capacity factor.

The way to sidestep this is by using actual electricity generated, not capacity. Exactly as it does in the link. How do I know this? Because the graph is in TWh, while capacity is measured in TW. So they’re different. I know it must be complicated for a lay person.

We deal with information from China all of the time, and I can tell you, official figures are only ever correct when they show the Chinese State Administration of Industry and Commerce (SAIC) in a favorable light.

Also, China has ambiguous state secrecy laws, and although total power production is not a state secret, often components of that production are, forcing commentators to guesstimate how much was from wind, how much was from coal, how much was from nuclear, etc.

Ergo, you cannot reasonably make any comparisons between China and any other country.

Poor greenie; Installed capacity and capacity factor are the difference between 24/7 power from the installation and what is actually produced as an average over a year; wind’s capacity factor is between 20 and 30% as shown in table 1 here.

But that is not the whole story because the POWER produced by wind as shown in the capacity factor is an average; from moment to moment the power produced is termed the Reliability Point which is the % that the capacity factor occurs at any time to a 90% certainty which is the lowest standard for scientific validation.

From Table 1 we can see that there is only a 2-6% chance that the 20-30% average power output, the capacity factor, will be achieved at any one time.

What this means, greenie, is that wind POWER is useless as an actual electricity source; it is useless because its intermittency is so great that reliable fossil and nuclear power must be kept running constantly to make up for the unreliability of wind.

So that POWER generated by wind is not used as electricity, it is just a duplication, a waste, bled up a pole.

LESTER R. BROWN, founder and President of Earth Policy Institute, has been described by the Washington Post as “one of the world’s most influential thinkers” and as “the guru of the global environmental movement” by The Telegraph of Calcutta. The author of numerous books, including World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse, chapters, articles, etc., he helped pioneer the concept of environmentally sustainable development. His principal research areas include food, population, water, climate change, and renewable energy. The recipient of scores of awards and honorary degrees, he is widely sought as a speaker. In 1974, he founded Worldwatch Institute, of which he was President for its first 26 years. As President, he launched the World Watch Papers, the Worldwatch/Norton books, the annual State of the World, World Watch magazine, the annual Vital Signs, and the Institute’s News Briefs.

Excellent. So, obviously the difference between nameplate capacity and delivered power is the capacity factor.

The way to sidestep this is by using actual electricity generated, not capacity. Exactly as it does in the link. How do I know this? Because the graph is in TWh, while capacity is measured in TW. So they’re different. I know it must be complicated for a lay person.

Sure Heywood, let’s talk about France, the poster child for nuclear energy. They had to import electricity from, ahem, Germany, last February, because they’d shut down some of their reactors. Oh, and they’ve extended the operating licenses of a few others. And the ones that are closing down are going to cost slightly more than a gazillion Euros to decommission. Oh, and they use fresh water for cooling which is running short in summer since there isn’t as much water in the rivers any more – couldn’t possibly be climate change, could it?

But don’t worry, the French have only got six functioning reactor sites in seismically-active zones.

Evcricket, I swear there will be a time when wind TURBINES will be be regarded as a relic of totalitarian thought, much like those seemingly countless statues of Marx and Lenin littering many formerly Eastern Bloc countries. There is nothing wrong with admitting to being wrong but it does take a lot of guts and self respect.

So if it so easy for the Chinese and they have so much potential( as per the Harvard data) why are they building and commissioning coal fired power stations at the rapid rate they are?
Why are the Chinese manufacturers of wind turbines struggling (financially)?

“Today nearly 440 nuclear reactors produce electricity around the world. More than 15 countries rely on nuclear power for 25% or more of their electricity. In Europe and Japan, the nuclear share of electricity is over 30%. In the U.S., nuclear power creates 20% of electricity. Among these are China, India, the United States, Russia and Japan, which together represent half of world population. Other nations – such as Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Finland, South Korea, South Africa, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and several other countries in Central and Eastern Europe – are acting to increase the role of nuclear power in their economies. Key developing nations without nuclear power – such as Indonesia, Egypt and Vietnam – are considering this option. ”

France gets the highest percentage of electricity from nuclear sources, but Switzerland and Sweden get roughly half their electricity from nuclear. The Czechs are doing well selling nuclear power to the Germans, until the new German brown coal stations start up. Lithuania wants to build a new reactor and one is building in Finland.

Countries like Denmark and Italy, which claim to be nuclear free, import substantial amounts of nuclear power from their neighbours.

Dead right. And if we have to reduce GHG emissions (e.g. if a UN treaty is signed), then going nuclear avoids the huge compliance costs of emissions monitoring, trading, fraud etc. It even avoids having to measure the emissions from your paint factory (in joke: to get it see Graeme No3′s excellent and interesting comments about the realities of emissions monitoring near the end of this thread: http://jennifermarohasy.com/2012/06/what-the-carbon-tax-and-ets-will-really-cost-peter-lang/ ).

I have reproduced the BOM graph below for NSW, which contradicts the statement made by BOM above. According to the graph, the highest January temperature on record was in 1939. Last month was still the 5th highest on record, but all have occurred since 1939. The BOM are therefore incorrect in saying

There actually is something we could use as a ready reference as to how little Wind Power actually generates.

Australia’s Total electrical power capacity from every source of power generation in the Country comes in at 42,000MW

Currently in the U.S. there is 60,000MW of total installed Capacity for Wind Power, and that’s 43% greater than Australia’s Capacity for ALL its power plants of every type.

Australia currently consumes around 250TWH of power each year.

Every one of those Wind Towers in the U.S. delivered in the last 12 Month period 140TWH.

Note here how even though the U.S. has a far greater Capacity just from Wind than ALL of Australia’s Capacity from every power Plant, all those Wind Plants can only deliver 56% of our total power requirements, which, in fact, does not even equate to the Australian Base Load requirement.

For some perspective, that Wind Capacity in the U.S. is greater than Australia’s Total Wind Capacity by a factor of 24.

All of that U.S. Wind Power supplies only 3.4% of all Power consumed in the U.S.

Okay then, while we’re discussing the ridiculous power delivery from Wind Power, let’s reference the total wind power delivery from every U.S. Wind Plant to Nuclear power, and here we are talking about 40,000+ wind towers.

There are 65 Nuclear Power plants in the US, running 104 reactor/turbine/generator complexes.

Those Nukes deliver 770TWH to U.S. grids, 5.5 times as much power as delivered from those 40,000+ towers.

What that effectively means is that the same amount of power that wind delivers is delivered from 12 Nuclear power plants.

I was interested in researching wind energy so
I submtted a Don Quixote essay in the Spectator
Ridley competition. I included and referenced some
of Tony from Oz’ excellent study of wind turbines
in Esperence,WA,towers 200 feet high supporting a
turbine housing.or nacelle, the size of a bus …
say, listen to that thrummm!

The generator can’t be too large though for
mounting off the ground so units most commonly
generate about 3/4 MW power output and are
designed to operate in wind speeds between 8/16MPH.
Guess yer could say that efficiency and intermittency
are a constant problem.

28 Feb: NYT: Justin Gillis: Study of Ice Age Bolsters Carbon and Warming Link
A meticulous new analysis of Antarctic ice suggests that the sharp warming that ended the last ice age occurred in lock step with increases of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the latest of many indications that the gas is a powerful influence on the earth’s climate…
The latest paper was led by Frédéric Parrenin of the University of Grenoble, in France, and is scheduled for publication on Friday in the journal Science…http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/01/science/earth/at-ice-age-end-a-smaller-gap-in-warming-and-carbon-dioxide.html?_r=0

It’s a confusing article because I can’t figure out what this guy is getting at really.

In it he says in one place (and Joanne mentions it in that second last para of her first block quote there):

If we were to cover the entire Earth with wind farms, he notes, “the system could potentially generate enormous amounts of power, well in excess of 100 terawatts……

Currently, on the whole of Planet Earth there is 282GW of Nameplate Capacity for Wind Power.

That comes in at 0.282 TeraWatts, so what this person is getting at is that they could realistically ramp up the total Wind Power Capacity by a factor of 355.

That existing total of 282GW is around 200,000 towers.

The current average for generators on top of these towers is 2.5 to 3MW, so for an installed Nameplate Capacity of 100TW, you are looking at around 40 Million towers, (with 2.5MW generators) and there’s currently only 200,000 of them.

See now why the article is quite literally ‘pie in the sky’.

In the direct para before the other one the article says:

“If wind power’s going to make a contribution to global energy requirements that’s serious, 10 or 20 percent or more, then it really has to contribute on the scale of terawatts in the next half-century or less,”

Okay, so now we have 50 years at the latest, and keep in mind the lifespan of a wind tower is 25 years, and there’s some modern thinking that has that down to 15 years now, but lets’ say it’s good for that 25 years.

So where this guy says 100TW in 50 years, and that’s 40 million towers, that effectively means that, providing they had all the nacelles and equipment for this construction, and they work 24 hours around the clock, because it’s always light for half the Planet at any one time, that means they finish off, connected to the World’s grid, one complete wind tower every ….. 8 seconds.

Eight seconds.

And even then half of them will have time expired.

Do you seriously think this will happen, even if they have the money to do it?

Not on your life.

See how easy it is to write something down, and how impossible the actuality is.

Even if they have literally millions of crews working on it, it won’t happen.

By the way that current total World Capacity of 280GW is only delivering its power at an 18% Capacity Factor.

You can say all you like about how great Wind Power is.

Get in your car and drive into town. Using Wind Power efficiency, you’ll only get there one time in five. Would you keep your car?

“so for an installed Nameplate Capacity of 100TW, you are looking at around 40 Million towers, (with 2.5MW generators)”

And that’s just nameplate capacity. He actually said “the system could potentially generate enormous amounts of power, well in excess of 100 terawatts” which I take to mean that at a given moment 100 TW is actually being produced… which would require what some 400TW of nameplate capacity?

Heywood, I’ve been asked that question before. It’s tricky, since I’m from NSW. It’s like choosing between dark and milk chocolate, depends on mood. There used to be a coal loader at Wollstonecraft when I was living there. When they sprayed it down on a warm day the aroma was heavenly.

These days I never see or smell it. It just powers everything I do with safety, reliability and, at source, economy. I hate to think of it being burnt in old clunkers. I’d love to see it powering some flash, ultra-light turbines so not a grain is wasted. I don’t want it to last us two hundred years, I want it to last us three hundred years. By then, we’ll be using something else for our power – nobody knows what, because only carnival frauds and climate bedwetters pretend to know the future – but I hope there’s still a bit of the nice black or brown being burnt somewhere. Just to make us feel like progressing, as opposed to progressive, human beings.

❝ It is only a few weeks since we were being told how the heatwave in Australia was unprecedented, and proof of global warming.

Now the GISS systems are up and running again, we can check just how hot it really was last month down under.
.

★ In none of the examples is the January temperature a record, or even close to being so, and in most cases higher temperatures were recorded 50 years or more ago.

NSW was probably the worst affected state, yet, according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), it was only the 5th warmest January since 1910, and all the others occurred prior to 1940. In other words, a once in 20 years event.
.

★ The BOM explain the causes of the heatwave in Tasmania, which lasted just two days, very well.

“The high combined with an approaching cold front on the 3rd and 4th to direct a very hot air flow over Tasmania”.

In other words, weather. But don’t expect the Railway Engineer to tell you this.❞

Warmest January mean temperatures since 1939
• Almost 500 fires across the state; first
Catastrophic fire day since December 2009
• TC Oswald brings heavy rain and flooding in
eastern NSW
• Dry weather continues west of the divide

Heywood, the 30s were the decade good weather forgot, right across the world. Our Big Heat of 1938-39 was just part of the story in Oz. Globally, floods in China were the biggest killer by far. The ’38 catastrophe was due to horribly bungled politics and military strategy more than nature, but the natural ’31 flood was, in the opinion of many, worse than 1887. No way of counting, but estimates of deaths have gone into the millions.

But the amazing year in terms of extremes was 1936 in North America. The heat was not spread as wide as 2012, but the intensity toward the north and centre, and into Canada, combining with the effects of the preceding Dustbowl years, made it a climate horror. What some don’t know is that it followed one of the most severe winters on record, then and still. Like with the heat, the cold was worst in areas west of the Great Lakes. The heat and cold of that year affected most areas, but Iowa was totally the place not to be.

Mind you, the shift from heat to cold in parts of the US right now must rate pretty high as a radical shift between extremes.

The Northern Hemisphere has a new record for cold, pushing out 1933? -71.2°C in Oymyakon just the other day? Oh well, no big deal. Hang about long enough and every record goes. Gaia never was anybody’s mummy.

Silly me, Heywood. Did I mention that the Coldwave-Heatwave of 1936 was preceded in September of 1935 by the renowned Labor Day Hurricane? Cat 5 at landfall, 295 km/h and 892 mbar! Fortunately, its aim wasn’t as good as Sandy’s.

And did I mention that I totally LOVE coal? (I think I did, actually.)

Your sidetrack about Alice Springs is also a bit mind-boggling. Maybe it’s meant to be sarcastic. Here’s the February rainfall map for the NT. Bugger-all rain anywhere, for a wet season. More likely to get bogged in bulldust, like you just did, than in a flooded creek.

Mr.K: TC Oswald brings heavy rain and flooding in eastern NSW
Answer: UN-IPCC/CSIRO tar wg2 2007:
Similar but less extreme results were found by Walsh et al. (2000) for estimates of meteorological drought in Queensland, based on simulations with the CSIRO RCM at 60-km resolution, nested in the CSIRO Mk2 GCM.That’s right – the IPCC prediction for north-east Australia (Queensland) was less rainfall, more droughts, and a generally drier climate.
.

If you are the sort of person who likes to question things, a skeptic possibly, you might ponder why, an official national recorder of metrological information would omit, or delete this important information.

Hobart recorded a maximum of 41.8 °C, Tasmania’s
second-highest temperature and the highest ever
observed in southern Tasmania. Several fires flared
in hot and dry conditions on the 4th, one that started
near Forcett causing extensive damage to Dunalley
and surrounding areas. Rainfall was below average
throughout the state.
• A record 41.8 °C in Hobart on the 4th
• Hottest day on record at several other sites in the
southeast
• Highest January minimum temperature on record
at some sites in the southeast
• Destructive bushfires
• Below average rainfall

Sorry ‘Jive, I didn’t notice your link to a year-old statement from the BOM that Australia was drought-free. You need an update: Severe rainfall deficiencies for the 6 month (August 2012 to January 2013) period have expanded in central Australia and in large parts of the inland southeast of Australia following below average January rainfall.

When the February map comes out, the drought will be seen to have extended into western Queensland. So wow, imagine, the IPCC might be right after all.

I’m sorry, Jo’s wrong, January WAS an unusual heat wave. The fact that you deny it makes me wonder.

Well lleW, I prefer to go to the source for data, and rely on news and analysis sites for updates and analysis. How’s this for record low temperaures? Global temperature maps for December 2012 and January 2013. February data not available yet.

I’m sorry, what was that you were saying about regional variations and global warming?

I recognise there are many simplifications in this (some would decrease and some would increase this cost). But you can get the big picture. Wind is a very expensive way to reduce emissions.

Some that would increase the calculated abatement cost are adding the increased grid costs (up to $45/MWh) and allowing for the ineffectiveness of wind abatement (wind was just 53% effective at avoiding emissions in Ireland in 2011 (17% wind energy penetration). We don’t know in Australia because we have no way of estimating the emissions avoided accurately enough and at the time scale required)

Add these facts to your list: I’ve also got a taxi-driver’s license, and I know a thing or two about sheep. Come on, there has to be a joke in there somewhere. I’m practically spoon-feeding you.

Thanks for calling me a goose. Geese are awesome. The Romans used them as guard animals on the Capitoline Hill, and I’ve used them to protect other fowl against snakes and goannas. Their livers make fabulous pate, there’s a lot of meat on them, and their feathers are in the best doonas. They’re also great for slug control in the veggie patch. Very practical animals.

1. It was Larry (three)
2. When the Romans were there it was called Capitolinus Hill not Capitoline Hill .
3. There were no geese on Capitolinus Hill – only two temples.
4. Pigeons are very different from geese.
5. The rest is just SHLT.

Now explain Peter Langs coment: Abatement cost of wind with backup is roughly twice the abatement cost of gas. Justify wind turbines as any sort of power supply in relation to CO2 abatement. Also tell me the Realibility Point of Wind power?

Dave, down boy. Here’s a refresher on Roman history. “When the Gauls attacked Rome, the Capitoline did not fall because of geese who honked their warning. From then on, the sacred geese were honored and annually, the dogs who had failed in their job, were punished.” If you’re talking Latin, it’s the Collis Capitōlīnus. So, ouyay ailfay ogday atinLay.

Chris Monckton could have put you right. With his background in classical architecture he’d be the right person to talk to about Roman temples.

The U.S. precedent offshore Cape Wind project features (130) wind turbines. As specified by the developer, and as approved by U.S. Department of Interior under Secretary Salazar, and based on the 4,000 page Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), and the developers’ Construction Operation Plan, Cape Wind turbines are “discontinued”, “sinking”, “shifting” and “corroding”, as deployed offshore U.K.

But we don’t actually know if that’s happening because we are good sceptics and we wouldn’t in a million years rush to believe something based on a bunch of dodgy news clippings from unverified sources.

The curious thing about this article is its title, “Turbines break like match-sticks” – I’ve spent the last 3 days searching, and I can’t find any recorded instance of any Turbine breaking like a match stick.

The research quoted in this article doesn’t appear to contain any evidence of this ever happening either.